Everything.Ecstatic

If Sydney's Modular Records were a film, a movie rather, they might be Tron, or maybe instead they would be the single frame when Peter Weller drives (at lightning, intergalactic speeds!) into the mountain (the 8th dimension!) at the beginning of the seminal, truly astonishing film of film of films: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. These neon loving Aussies have been releasing some of the best dance rock, post-post-post punk, and new electro since they started in '98 - all blessed with a cheeky sense of 80's retro and a die-hard love of partying. If you live in NYC, make sure to hit up their monthly (next on 12.9), while LA will be blessed with its first Modular party on the 6th. SF People - Modular's New Young Pony Club plays Popscene on the 7th. Support.

Modular Peoples:
New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow (Van She Remix)
Cut Copy - Saturdays
Soulwax - Miserable Girl

Aw fuck it, they would definetly look like this:

Have.You.Ever.Seen.an.X-Ray.of.a.Hiccup?

Co-owner of Glasgow's Breastfed Records with Mylo, Linus Loves(aka Kevin McKay) has been dropping some really solid remixes over the last few years, and as a result his clientele seem to only grow more and more prestigious with each cut - J. Timberlake, Cee-lo, Scissor Sisters, etc. His style tends to be pretty reserved, but by no means are these simplistic house remixes of pop songs. Leaving the vocals intact, he tends toward bassy synth patterns that are just enough to kick a song out of the top 40 and into a set of bangin' electro house.

Mylo - In Your Arms (Linus Loves Remix)
Kelis & Cee-lo- L'il Star (Linus Loves Remix)
Justin Timberlake - Sexyback (Linus Loves Remix)
Husky Rescue - New Light of Tomorrow (Linus Loves remix)

Linus Loves - Stand Back

Jimmy.Crack.Corn

This reminds me of Ween. Ween is underrated.

Ween - Zoloft
Ween - The Mollusk

Computer.Love

Tiny Vices: Asher Penn

Deeejay Mix #2 - DJ Never Forget - 2nd Class: The Story of a Laptop DJ

Crosseyed.and.Painless

Hot Chip swung through SF on Friday night and played to a sold-out and super energetic crowd at Mezzanine. Playing mostly stuff off The Warning LP, a lot of the songs were tweaked in interesting ways for a live setting - pacing changes, a few segues, and a lot of added percussion. They also dropped a new track from the upcoming album complete with a raging wordless shout of a chorus (read: Arcade Fire with beats). Also, another new track can be heard here. New album already? Aren't singles still dropping from The Warning?

Hot Chip - The Warning
Hot Chip - Over And Over

Embraceable.You

Paper Television, the debut LP from Portland, Oregon's The Blow is a gem of warm, lo-fi electronic pop that is partly so endearing simply because it wears its bashful, midi-produced, teenage club-house qualities so boldly. Consisting of Khaela Marichich (vocals) and Jona Becholt (beats), also of YACHT, The Blow's sound owes as much to traditonal R&B as it does the Northwest DIY attitude that has helped spawn countless amazing bands. It is the sound of holding hands and eating cotton candy and those blow-up bouncy things that you jump on at birthday party's and town fairs and stuff.

The Blow - True Affection
The Blow - Parentheses

The Blow-Knowing The Things That I Know

I.Predict.A.Riot.

Last Saturday the first Be the Riottt! festival took place here in SF at the Bill Graham Civic Center, bolstering a pretty amazing lineup to make up for its atrocious title. The more large scale "festival" type productions I attend, the more critical and also forgiving I become of them. Certain aspects of Be the Riottt really rubbed me the wrong way (read: Girl Talk below), and while I understand it takes a mind boggling amount of work to put on such a huge event, after attending such tightly produced events like Siren, Montreal Jazz Fest, or even Vegoose or Bonnaroo, you start to expect "givens" like no sound problems, accurate set times, etc. Anyway, music...



Stuck with a pretty early set time, I caught about the last half of the Toronto based four piece, Tokyo Police Club. They ripped through a bunch of short, high energy post-punkish garage rock songs and although they weren't exactly bringing anything fresh to the table, they did it superbly.

Tokyo Police Club - Shoulders & Arms



I was completely enamored with Asobi Seksu's latest LP, Citrus, over the summer so it was interesting to finally see their live gig. Some of the polished shoe gaze production(oxy moron?) was lost on stage, as was the perfection that is Yuki's voice, which in the end, made it one of those shows where you are merely hearing watered down versions of your favorite tunes. It just made me want to listen to the album on big headphones.

Asobi Seksu - Strings



Steve Aoki (Kid Millionaire, Dim Mak) and Blake Miller (Moving Units) brought some pure hot fire next with their DJ project Wierd Science. It seemed like Steve Aoki brought most of the magic to the decks (how did this guy become such a party icon?) and there was plenty of new electro house to go around with at least three Digitalism remixes thrown in.

Cut Copy - Going Nowhere (Digitalism Remix)



Sydney's The Presets fucking killed it - by far the best set of the festival. They made people do this...

Go see them as soon as you can. They are on tour supporting The Rapture and their electro dance rock craziness will make you jump up and down like you are at an eighth grade dance.

The Presets - I Go Hard, I Go Home


I was probably more excited about seeing Girl Talk
than any other act, so of course Metric went way over their allotted time with ridiculous, drunken stage antics that included chanting non-sensical free associations ("family is contagious! apathy is contagious!") which completely screwed Girl Talk. So Girl Talk comes on stage to a crowd going bonkers for him, says he only has half of an hour to play and jumps right in with his act (confetti, frantic dancing, stage diving, and mashups mashups mashups). Well any stupid promoter would know that Girl Talk always invites people on stage to dance, so that's what happened, and they cut him off after 15 minutes! 15 minutes is not a set. Then The Rapture of course take 45 minutes to come on stage - 45 minutes that Girl Talk could have been playing. It's not like his laptop was in the way of their soundcheck. Jesus. The whole thing left such a bad taste in my mouth that it was hard to even enjoy The Rapture's set. Bad way to end a good fest.

Girl Talk - Smash Your Head
The Rapture - Whoa!...Alright-yeah...uh Huh

All photos courtesy of Vaindeer. Check it.

My Robot Friend - One More Try (Vocals by Antony)

Notorious B.I.G. - Things Done Changed

Palais.de.Justice.

On Wednesday night the Parisian, Ed Banger duo, Justice, came and destroyed Mezzanine with a set of dirty electro house bangers. Less than fifteen minutes into their set, practically more than half of the audience was dancing on stage - absolutely losing their shit. When they dropped "We Are Your Friends," it was pretty humorous and a little awkward to see the people dancing on stage screaming the lyrics back at the audience on the floor - completely owning the moment. It was definitely a highlight to see Justice jump on the "return to rave" train and drop the Prodigy classic "Smack My Bitch Up," transforming a song that has always been a little campy for me into a complete rager that just killed it. MSTRKRFT opened and slammed it as well, playing a bunch of their remixes and tracks off of The Looks LP, and particularly nailing the crowd with an old Josh Wink acid track.

Justice - Waters of Nazareth (Erol Alkan's Durrr Durrr Durrrrr Remix)

The Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up

MSTRKRFT - She's Good For Business

And in other related news - last night at the MTV Europe Music Awards, the brilliant video for the Justice vs. Simian track "We Are Your Friends" came out of leftfield with an upset win, causing Kanye "Winning a bizzillion Grammy's isn't enough and I want an EMA video award too , boo hoo" West to come on stage and act like an arrogant, egotistical asshole.



Justice vs. Simian - We Are Your Friends

Boys.Don't.Cry.

I've been really keen on all things Junior Boys as of late. Their latest LP, So This is Goodbye, is fantastic from start to finish, and all of their remixes and side projects have exquisitely carried over their unique take on downtempo and minimalism. Besides the sleek production, it is Jeremy Greenspan's voice that really nails it here - meloncholy and aching and just about perfect for headphones on a late night bus.

Junior Boys - FM

Mobius Band - The Loving Sounds of Static (Junior Boys Remix)

Morgan Geist - Most of All (feat. Jeremy Greenspan)



Also, Todd Field's latest film Little Children is one of the best suburban, love-triangle dramas I've seen in a bit. Smart, precise, and wonderfully casted, it is a film that suggests so much about the parent/child dichotomy, ethical judgement, suburban America, movies themselves - it is about to burst.